Beautiful America-Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah

We left Yellowstone early in the morning for the long drive to South Dakota. We had beautiful scenery on the way to Cody, Wyoming. The temperature was about 30 when we left, but in the 70's during our 9 hour drive. I was driving, when all of a sudden, a deer was in the middle of the road! I think that I was the one with the "deer in the headlights" look. I don't know if he ran out or was already there, but at least I didn't hit him.

We stopped at Devil's Tower, called Bear's Lodge by the Native Americans. It's in the Black Hills. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was filmed here. The monolith is 1267 feet above the surrounding terrain. We saw more of the gorgeous red rock formations and trees downed by fires. We pretended to play whack-a-mole with the prairie dogs in a nearby field.

We arrived in Custer, South Dakota around 7 pm. The next day, we drove to the Crazy Horse monument, which has been under construction for 50 years. The height of the Mount Rushmore faces is 60 ft; the full busts are 285 ft. The Washington Monument in D.C. is 255 ft. Crazy Horse is 563 feet!

This is what the Crazy Horse monument will eventually look like.



Then we saw Mount Rushmore-awesome!

We drove through Keystone and on to Rapid City. There are statues of 40 of the 50 Presients in the historic area, standing around on the sidewalks as if they were pedestrians.




Then we followed the highway signs to Wall, South Dakota. The imaginative signs are like the old Burma Shave signs, all along the 75 mph highway. Wall Drugs is a block-long drugstore that attracts 20,000 visitors a day during the summer. They hire students from all over the world to work during the summer months. The students are housed in dorms. Workers at Mount Rushmore are the same.

We drove through the nearby Badlands National Park. The formations from millions of years ago are amazing.



We returned to Mount Rushmore by 6 pm for a 40 minute patriotic show. The mountain was lit up, a film was shown, and veterans came up on stage to be honored. It was very moving.

The next day, we left for Denver. We saw lots of grasslands, bales of hay, and cows. We went about 7 miles out of our way to step foot in Nebraska. When we got to Littleton, Colorado, we saw Jackass St. in the neighborhood of Southpark. That still makes me laugh. Our friends live in Highland Ranch, a suburb of Denver. We met them for dinner and went back to their house for a lovely visit.

The next day, we took off southward for Colorado Springs. It was about 85 degrees, unusually warm. However, it was 113 in L.A., a record and hottest in the nation. We went to the Air Force Academy. We visited the various chapels, and the main chapel is gorgeous.




Then we drove to nearby Garden of the Gods, which had colorful rock formations. We also saw Pike's Peak, pictured in the background. We walked around a cute little hippies-type of village named Manatu Springs.

We finished up our afternoon back in downtown Denver. We saw the Performing Arts Center, the State Capitol, Coors Field, and the home of the Unsinkable Molly Brown. We returned to our friends' home for pizza and talk. They have a huge 1200 sq. foot completed basement, something we don't see in L.A.

We woke up early to drive north to Estes Park, the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Overlooking the pleasant little village of Estes Park is the Stanley Hotel, the haunted hotel which was featured in "The Shining." In fact, the hotel shows the film, "The Shining" on a continuous loop in the guest rooms.

The Rocky Mountains were stunning.



We stopped at Lake Irene for a picnic lunch.




A few butterflies kept us company.




The roads were treacherous-scary, curving, and winding. It took about 5 hours to drive through the park. We drove over a 12,000 foot high pass, seeing more elk and passing the continental divide two more times.

Leaving Colorado, we visited Vail and walked around the village.





We drove through Arapaho National Forest, westbound to Moab, Utah and Arches National Park.






We stopped at Balanced Rock, the Windows, and Turret arches for a beautiful, memorable sunset. We walked on a couple of short trails, too. Some other arches that we saw were named Double Arch, Three Gossips, the Organ, Courthouse towers, Tower of Babel, Fiery Furnaces, Tunnel Arch.

Amazingly, it's still shorts weather. My thermals, gloves, and scarves are buried deep in the bottom of my suitcase.

I thought that I liked the beauty of Arches the best, until I saw Bryce National Park. The ride was magnificent: scenery of red rock formations, canyons, and mesas. We drove past Fishlake National Forest and the Sevier River. We also passed through Dixie National Forest and Red Canyon, driving through tunnels in the rocks, on the way to Bryce.

We drove through Bryce, stopping various viewing points. Then we returned to the famous Ruby's Inn for a rest before our sunset drive through Bryce. We drove to the end of the park first, making our way back, stopping for views at Rainbow Point, Black Birch Canyon, Ponderosa Canyon, Agua Canyon, Natural Bridge, Far view Point, Swamp Canyon, Paria View, Sunrise Point, Sunset Point,Inspiration Point, and Bryce Point. Each spot was more breathtaking than the previous one. The tall thin spres of rocks are called hoodoos. I was entranced.

We re-traced our steps through Dixie National Forest and Red Canyon, going to Las Vegas for one last night of our trip.



We finally tried a Cracker Barrel restaurant, in St. George, Utah, before reaching Vegas. We saw the Viva Elvis Cirque de Soleil show. I liked the trampoline acts the best, but I still liked the Beatles Love Cirque de Soleil show much better.

One last day of driving before we reached home to find Cleo waiting for us. We put 4000 miles on my car, but it was worth every minute. We were well-prepared and will be talking about this unforgettable, spectacular trip, for a long time to come.